Two Quarters and a Heart Down

Listening to my iPod today for the first time in ages. Proud to save I haven't skipped past a single song because they've all rocked, every one of them has been a nice surprise, a window on a happy memory, a path down a lovely escape route. With decent headphones, everything is amplified.

The song that got me hardest today was Fall Out Boy's "Dance, Dance." I've listened to that song hundreds of times since first catching FOB fever (OK, Pete Wentz fever followed by Patrick Stump fever) three years ago, but I guess my car speakers are way worse than I thought because this was the first time I really, truly heard the song, and damn it's great.

The talented and adorable Patrick Stump was lustfully chatting all those sweet nothings in my ear and I couldn't concentrate on my editing for a minute. Praise that rock 'n roll music!

I have shows to report on and other goodness to share, but all of that will have to wait until another day, this afternoon is all about sharing the Fall Out Boy love. The guys got a bum rap, being cast into that guilty pleasure pit, and are now scampering off to do other projects, conquer the world in new ways, but the young, adorable, full-of-bravado versions I was first introduced to will always hold a special place in my heart.

I don't see how anyone can watch this video and not fall for Pete or Patrick or Joe or Andy (or all of them) just a little bit. I also don't see how you can sit calmly in your seat when this song comes on, it's called "Dance, Dance" for a reason.

Simple

First things first, the African Well Fund did win one of the $20,000 donations in Chase Community Giving today so thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for casting votes and asking everyone you know to do the same. This is truly a case of a few people working together to make a positive change in the world, because of 1,503 votes thousands of people are going to have access to clean water and sanitation. Thank you!

And now for something completely different. I think I should just have John Mayer write journal entries for me, because so much of what he writes matches up with how I feel or somehow manages to shine a light on something I've been investigating for a while.

In his downtime before the North American leg of his summer tour launches (orchestra seats for Irvine in August, hell yeah!), he took the time to share this with all his readers, and now I share it with you.

Simple.
I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

You can listen to all the sage wisdom you want, but things only make sense when you can explain them to yourself in your own words. For instance, I’ve been told for three years that Breaking Bad is the best show on television, but only after I watched it was I able to tell myself exactly why everyone was right. Other truths I know now that I can explain them: that I’m not missing any crucial information and that poker really isn’t all that fun; that heartbreaks do fade but they take about a year longer than you expect and by the time they do you really don’t care about it enough to notice; and above all else, life is simpler than you think.

I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.

Things are getting simpler, and it’s making life better. Here’s the cheat sheet:

People want to be liked. We all crave attention and affection and we all reject shame. When we get embarrassed we send a thug version of ourselves to the forefront to do our fighting for us. We’re at the top of the food chain just under fear. We don’t want to be in a relationship to hear the words “I love you,” we want to be in a relationship to say the words “I love you.” We want to feel needed, and exceptional and we hate feeling insignificant. We want to ace a hearing test. We are binary creatures; if we’re the plaintiff, we want to win every dollar. If we’re the defendant, we want guard every penny. We want to make more money than last year. We don’t want to get cancer or die in our cars and we want the same for our loved ones. We go out on weekends to try and have sex while trying not to get punched in the face. We drink so we can be ourselves and not mind it so much. We’re desperate to be understood. We want to know someone else has felt it, too. We hate being judged unfairly. We want to make the person we heard wasn’t all that into us change their minds and admit they had us wrong. We want sunny skies with a chance of killer tornadoes, just to keep music sounding good. We take hours upon hours to admit to self consciousness. We don’t know exactly how to pleasure each other. We just want love. In any and every form.

See? It’s simple. :)

African Well Fund and Chase Community Giving

I was anti-Facebook for the longest time. Maybe it was because MySpace hadn't done much for me, or maybe it was because I'm anti anything new and supposedly cool and all that, but for whatever reason I held out until earlier this month. It's a fun thing to be a part of, I get to share pictures with friends all around the world (or at least check out the pictures they've posted of us) and keep up with my cousins. Facebook also gives me the chance to tell more people about the African Well Fund.

Right now, AWF is taking part in Chase Community Giving, an online challenge sponsored by the banking company in which grassroots, nonprofit organizations ask their supporters to cast votes for them. The organization with the most votes will earn a $250,000 donation from Chase, the next four charities will get $100,000 and the next 195 will get $20,000. AWF has held steady in the top 200 since voting began on June 15 but needs continued support to win one of the donations when voting ends on July 12.

If you're on Facebook, you can help AWF win one of the donations up for grabs by becoming a fan of Chase Community Giving and casting your vote for African Well Fund Inc. Everyone has 20 votes to cast and can cast one vote per charity. After five and 20 votes, you earn gift votes that can be sent to friends who can use those votes for any organization, even one they've already voted for.

African Well Fund is currently raising money to fund a water pump project in Benin. Winning one of the donations from Chase will help fund this project and provide a reliable clean water source to as many as 1,000 people. Learn more about the project here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting the African Well Fund!!

What do you do when you are having an awful day?

John Mayer answers reader questions on his blog and this one stuck out to me quite a bit. Seems like we've all been having bad days lately, some worse than others. It's nice to get a little perspective, nice to know you're not alone in it. Like U2 said, "This time will pass."

Q: What do you do when you are having an awful day?
-- asked by mmkayy


A: First of all, sorry you're having an awful day. (People don't ask these kinds of questions when they're sipping drinks by a pool.)

What do I do when I'm having an awful day? I time travel. Well, sort of. Here's how I cheat the math:

Question: Is this problem going to change your life forever or will there come a day this problem will no longer exist?

If you decide the problem won't exist after a certain period of time, then you can file it under "temporary." Which brings me to step number two: if the problem is temporary, then you can sort of detach from the "now-ness" of the discomfort. I'm not saying ignore the lessons in the problem. Definitely learn from the problem, work to solve it, but spare yourself the existential grief, because it will get you nowhere. (This coming from an existential grief-master.)

Okay, better way to explain it: you wake up to find you have a giant zit on your nose. Everyone can see it. But within a week that zit will be gone and nobody will remember you had a zit. Maybe they'll have one instead. So if the zit will be gone next week and people will forget, is the zit REALLY there now? I say you can answer "no" if you bend your brain around it the right way.

You can't travel through time, but you can send your thoughts and hopes into the future to camp out and wait for you to arrive there, where you'll meet up and hug and decide that everything is alright again.

Henry Rollins at Largo

I have a safety pin stamped on my hand, a fading reminder of the amazing time I had last night at Largo, a tiny theater in Los Angeles. My brother, nephew and I were second row center for the last of Henry Rollins' three-night spoken-word stand at the theater, a three-hour show that was hilarious and thoughtful and inspiring and reinforced why I have so admired this man for more than half my life.

I was introduced to Rollins in high school by my then-boyfriend who told me about this punk rock singer who wrote poetry. How could I not be hooked? I saw him perform with Rollins Band for the first time in 1994 and I got my first, and favorite, book, "One From None," a few months later. Soon followed more books and CDs, some music, most spoken word.

On his spoken word CDs, Rollins would talk about having his number listed in the phone book and answering calls and letters from kids in trouble. I wasn't in trouble, but I definitely could use some guidance from someone older, someone who made it out of a tough childhood, someone who'd seen a bit of the world, so I sent him a letter and asked for some advice. My brother was sorting the mail one day when he asks, "Who's Henry?" I couldn't think who Henry was, so he handed me the index card repurposed as a postcard that was addressed to me and had a perfectly thoughtful one-sentence answer to my question signed "Henry." Yeah, he wrote me back, twice in fact. I'll never forget that he took the time to think about me and my teenage problems and try to send some advice that would make me feel better, make me feel like my situation wasn't hopeless.

In that time, I also developed a crush that's never gone away.

My first spoken word show was in 1996 at Cal State Fullerton (front row center) and I met the man for the first time a year later at a book signing. I had so many things I wanted to say, like thank you, but as I moved closer and closer to the front of the snaking line, closer and closer to this amazing man in his black slacks, shiny dress shoes and silver long-sleeved shirt with banded collar (a perfect fit for a buff guy with a square jaw), I lost all composure and could only manage, "Hi!Wouldyousignmybookforme?" He wrote in my well-word copy of "One From None," "Hello from Henry Rollins."

He's signed a few more books for me, but that first one is still the most special, and, along with the postcards he sent me, among the items I would try to grab in a fire.

I did actually talk to him a year later, encouraged/pushed by a friend who knew I wouldn't be able to live myself if I chickened out a second time. I thanked him for answering my letter, told him how much it meant to me. He told me how hard he tried to answer all the letters he got from kids asking him for help. In between touring the world with spoken word shows, writing books, acting in TV and movies, hosting a weekly radio show, working with the USO and on and on, I think he still does.

I've been to eight Henry Rollins spoken word shows and two Rollins band shows. I've met him five times. I interviewed him for my college paper. I always have a picture of him on my desk. I have my books and CDs and ticket stubs and T-shirts. I have my article and interview notes. I still don't have a picture, yet, but feel pretty confident I'll get that chance at some show someday.

In being a Henry Rollins fan for 16 years, I know that he's not everyone's cup of tea, I know that some people think he's too angry, too preachy. I know there are people who don't agree with his political views or musical tastes (he famously dislikes U2). I know I'll never be able to convince them of the greatness I see and hear at any of his shows, in any of his books, on any of his CDs. Sometimes I think if they really listened, they'd understand why I still get so excited about going to see him in action, about reading his blogs for VanityFair.com, about him in general.

For instance, he gave this fantastic commencement speech last year in Northern California. I like that he not only respects people who are educated, but also has high expectations for what those grads (and the rest of us) can accomplish with that knowledge.

His shows mix that inspirational vibe with comedy, such as this clip:



Last night with Henry Rollins was an awesome three-hour ride. Sure, I didn't home until after 1 and had a very hard time getting out of bed for work this morning, but it was totally worth it getting to spend some time with one of my favorite people.

Teenage Kicks

I never understood adults who talk about their teenage years being the best time of their life. I remember myself from the ages of 13–19, I felt awkward and frustrated and lonely and powerless and wanted nothing more than for those times to be over. Go back to that? No thank you!

Now that I'm quite beyond those teenage years, I don't have that drippy nostalgia that leads women of questionable age to get tramp stamps and spend thousands of dollars on various torturous procedures that keep them looking "young" (if "young" means stretched and pulled within an inch of your life), but I do have such a fondness for teenage culture. I enjoy tuning into "Degrassi" or watching Zac Efron movies or catching a "One Tree Hill" marathon on SOAPNet or blasting Fall Out Boy's teen angst anthems at full blast on my very long commute.

With my purchase of the "Daria" boxed set a few weeks back, a release I'd been anticipating for years, I think I finally figured out my teenaged pop culture tastes. Even though I am very much no longer a teenager, there are still so many times when I feel as awkward and frustrated and lonely and powerless as I did when I was a scrawny girl with braces and terrible hair, and there are still definitely times when I want nothing more than for these times to be over.



I'm about five discs into the eight-disc "Daria" set and have loved every minute of it. It takes me back to my college days when the show first came on MTV and I was so happy to have a television character to relate to, even if she was animated. It also takes me back to my high school days when I would get frustrated in English class because everyone was happy to just give stock answers and never delve deeper, the times when I wondered how my brother and I could have grown up in the same house but have such different priorities, the times when my friendships would thrive or crumble, the times when I would fall hard for a rebel boy and never quite know how to act around him.

Who wouldn't want to relive that?

With the "Daria" set, I get a sharper view of that time and it helps me realize that even though there are days when I feel like my 13-year-old self, I know that I'm no longer that girl, that I am stronger and smarter and calmer than she was. I may not be the person I dreamt I'd be back then, but I am a pretty good version of myself for right now. And maybe 15 years from now I'll have some kind of weird nostalgia for my 30s on days when I get stuck inside the groove, but hopefully I'll be able to really look at myself, look at my life and see that I'm in a pretty good place.

Wherever Daria and Jane and their compatriots ended up, I hope that they're happy with where their lives are at, too.

YouTube is filled with many clips, episodes and odes to "Daria." This one caught my attention because I do have a soft spot for Trent, who is a bit of a dirt bag but has a really good heart.

Half of My Heart

I'm sending out best wishes to a few of my favorite guys today. Last week, Bono had to undergo emergency back surgery so U2's North American tour has been postponed to next year. I was supposed to see the band next Sunday in Anaheim and the following week in Oakland, so have to admit I'm a little disappointed that I have to wait nearly a year to see the band live again, but I hope Bono will take the time to fully recover.

Yesterday, John Mayer announced the postponement of his remaining European tour dates because he's had to come home to recover from illness.

To both of you, get well soon!!

John Mayer's latest video also premiered yesterday. It's for the song "Half of My Heart," which has really grown on me since "Battle Studies" first came out. Even though this duet with Taylor Swift doesn't fully live up to the Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty comparisons that have been made about it, "Half of My Heart" is still a really good song and I like the video, too. How does an artist recover his image after being trashed every which way for being a unapologetic heartbreaker? By casting himself as a runaway groom, of course.

Enjoy!